Or Read the transcript:

I’m so glad you joined me today. What we’re going to talk about is what makes running fun. It’s easy to get stuck in a little rut with running and often times you might even feel like quitting. I want to just share some things that I do to keep my running fun for me and give you a little bit of clarity on what might work for you, as well.

The first thing we’re going to talk about is connecting with our body, that’s the number one way to make running fun. You want to be able to body sense what’s happening within you and really being able to appreciate what’s going on in your body. How awesome would it feel to be able to celebrate your accomplishments? Now, this goes for those of you who are running 6-minute miles, it also goes for you who are running16-minute miles. There is no different between the distance your covering no matter how fast or not fast you’re going. I don’t want to say “slow,” because you’re still moving. You’re still not sitting on that couch. I want you to be giving credit where credit is due. Lots of times what I’ve seen with clients in the past is that they’re not celebrating their successes. A success might be just going for a walk one day and other days it might be like nailing that 800 repeat workout that you were designed to do. Different days call for different things. What I want you to recognize is that, what makes it fun is when you’re actually connecting with your body and appreciating what it does for you.

Another thing is using your senses. If you are lacking any kind of creativity on a run and you just want to set your stopwatch, set your stopwatch for 3 or 4-minute intervals and use a different sense for each interval. Danny Dreyer taught me this, he’s the founder of Chi Running. We did this run with him and we went through all 5 of our sense and just focused on one sense at a time. It was amazing how much I absorbed from that run and also how fast that run went. It was probably one of my favorite runs in my whole life, so I want to share that with you as a tip to making your run fun again. It’s all about using your body and sensing your body.

The second way to make your run fun is to take it to new places. I encourage you to really expand your horizons. We can often get in ruts and say, you know, here in Vermont when it turns to snow, it’s easy to just go to the treadmill and do all my runs there, but I find that really boring. I actually got an injury last year from watching too much Netflix and increasing my mileage way too fast. I needed to step away from that and do something different. What that meant for me is to get away from the mundane and get it back outside. I was actually running less distance but having so much more fun. I may not have even been going as fast because I was dealing with things like snow and ice and traffic and different things.

I encourage you to just try new places. If you’re used to running in the woods, you might want to take it to a bike path. If you’re used to running on a bike path, take it to the woods. If you’re used to running country roads, try running in a city. When you bring your running to different areas it really allows you to see the world from a different perspective, so make it experiential. That’s my second tip for making it fun.

A third thing is to become part of a community. Running is an individual sport, that’s why I loved it in high school because I was really competing against myself even though I was part of a team. What I miss about running as an adult is that team aspect, so I encourage you to find a community. They come in all different forms, where it used to be you’d have to meet up with a running group, that’s often really challenging when you have a busy schedule. You can find an online community. I have one, I’ll put a link to it at the bottom underneath here so if you’re interested in a running community online, you can sign up there or just link over. That would be awesome, I’d love to have you. You want someone or people to share your successes with. Just like we were talking about in the first tip around really understanding and celebrating your body, you want to share that with other people. You also want to have a community supporting you when you’re feeling challenged. Being a part of a community is super, super helpful. You can go local, you can go with friends, so local running groups, just go with your friends, or find an online community.

Join Running Redefined: A Virtual Running Club

Throw in one more last tip for you, this can be super fun also, is motivating yourself by training for a race. It’s kind of the experiential part but I like to keep it separate because it’s very specific. It’s goal oriented so it’s not just about lifestyle, it’s specifically training for a race. What’s awesome about today’s society is that you don’t even have travel to attend a race. I encourage you to travel because that makes it experiential, but they also come in the virtual form. If you’re looking for virtual races, those are possible too. A bonus is they are really easy to fit into your schedule.

Those are some options for making your run fun. These are just a few options, there are other options but I just wanted to give you a taste of how you can improve your experience and feel a little bit more fulfilled at the end of your run. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out to me. It was so great seeing you today and I’ll talk to you soon. Take care everybody!

If you have any questions about your running routine, don’t hesitate to reach out! Send me an email:

Sarah@RiseAndShine.Run